The Rules
TipSmack is a crowdfunding platform that helps artists and internet content creators make more money, period.
There are incredible talents in music, comedy, education, photography, fashion, journalism, and many other fields that simply “fizzle out” because they were unable to monetize their passion and invest more resources into it.
TipSmack’s goal is to provide a seamless tool for patrons of any creative work to supports its creator with additional monetary resources (“tips”) to further that work.
It’s like an old-school tip bucket, reimagined for the internet era.
Rule #1: Do not, under any circumstance, provide a link to your TipSmack donation page on content that contains, in any form, other people’s creative work.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) lays out a system of legal requirements for dealing with allegations of this type, and we fully comply with it.
YouTube, Facebook, and other major publishers have numerous, additional safeguards to prevent unauthorized users from monetizing others’ copyrighted material too, which prevents the creation of source material on which one can link to a TipSmack Donation Page.
We have a zero-tolerance policy for anyone that manages to bypass these safeguards and violate the DMCA, using TipSmack as a monetization tool.
Rule #2: You cannot use call-to-actions that cite charitable groups or causes.
If your charitable intent is pure, we fully support it and encourage you to advertise that notion on your own website and social forums, separate and unrelated to your TipSmack donation page.
Rule #3: TipSmack cannot be used to solicit donations for creative work that clearly, unequivocally advocates hate-speech and/or other violent and destructive behaviors.
If you are inciting violence or condoning other forms of destructive – and potentially illegal – hateful actions, we will immediately ban you from TipSmack. We want no part of it.
Rule #4: You cannot offer equity, or any other form of investment, via your TipSmack donation page.
This rule is pretty self-explanatory. TipSmack is a virtual tip bucket, not an online brokerage.
Rule #5: You cannot promise rewards as a pre-condition to donations. TipSmack patrons are sending non-binding donations to support the underlying work of the page owner, in general.
You can totally thank your TipSmack patrons with impromptu work, dedicated to their good faith and support. We encourage this, actually. However, it can never be a preconditional term to garnering their support (ie. “If you tip me, I will do “x”).
These rules should convey our platform’s mission, and acceptable use of it. However, there could be other possible uses – executed in bad faith – that we reserve the right to police accordingly. We’re here to help the world, not hurt it!